


Heart and Home

by Minutia_R



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Family, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The Jasmine Dragon was home almost as much as the Fire Nation Capital.  And whatever objections Bolin had to Iroh's other relatives, he couldn't have any to the spirit of Great-Granduncle, who'd chosen to run a teashop rather than be Firelord.</i>
</p>
<p>Bolin isn't sure about meeting Iroh's family.  Iroh has a cunning plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart and Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oryx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/gifts).



> Thank you to my most excellent betas, dropsofviolet and pizzakate.

"My dad was born in Ba Sing Se," said Bolin.

They'd been drinking tea in silence—companionable silence, Iroh had thought, but it occurred to him belatedly that Bolin didn't _do_ companionable silence. Nor did he talk about his parents, as a rule. Iroh looked at him over the rim of his cup and waited for him to go on.

"And, nothing." Bolin shrugged. "That's all I know. Mako probably remembers more, but I never liked to ask him . . . It's hard for him, talking about them."

"But not for you," said Iroh, though all Bolin's body language said the opposite: hunched shoulders, fingers laced tightly around his own teacup, which looked ridiculously tiny in his hands.

"I don't really remember them," he said.

Iroh's wire inviting Bolin to meet him in Ba Sing Se had seemed like genius at the time. The fleet was docked at Chameleon Bay, the Fire Ferrets had just finished an exhibition tournament in Serpent's Pass, what could be more natural? And, Iroh had hoped, it would be the first step in overcoming Bolin's reluctance to meet his family. The Jasmine Dragon was home almost as much as the Fire Nation Capital. And whatever objections Bolin had to Iroh's other relatives, he couldn't have any to the spirit of Great-Granduncle, who'd chosen to run a teashop rather than be Firelord.

Or that was the theory. But—Great-Granduncle had died before Iroh was born, and still he could tell dozens of stories about him. How he'd saved the last of the dragons. How he'd traveled to the spirit world. How he'd once mistaken a white jade bush for a white dragon bush. Whereas what Bolin could tell Iroh about his father was—apparently—that he'd been born in Ba Sing Se.

"Oh, hey." Bolin's chin came up. He smiled—not the full-on grin, but it still warmed Iroh's belly better than the tea. "I didn't mean to make things all awkward. It's not a big—I mean, I really don't remember. You've got lots of memories of this place though, right, you used to come here all the time when you were little? I'd love to hear them." He reached a hand across the table and Iroh took it in his, running his thumb over the broad palm, enjoying the way Bolin's fingers curled in response. Maybe they should go back to the displays of public indecency they'd shared when they'd met at the train station? Kissing was easy, conversation was hard. "I bet you were a troublemaker," Bolin was saying fondly. "You probably hid inside the dragon out front and firebent at passers-by."

"I did not!" It came out an indignant yelp. "That was Tom-Tom, not that our parents ever believed it, he was old enough to know better, he'd just finished his military academy qualifying exams third in the entire country, why would he want to ruin Lady Kirun's beautiful new coat . . ." Iroh ran out of steam, feeling a bit foolish. He shrugged. "Big brothers. I did put a jar's worth of spider rats in his bed the night before, I suppose I deserved it."

"I put a spider rat in Mako's bed once," Bolin confessed. "I mean, it was _our_ bed, and it had three broken legs, some kids had been—I couldn't just—Mako helped me find a box to keep it in after he was done freaking out. He didn't even say anything when I gave it half my lunch, but it died the next day anyway."

Wonderful, now Iroh had reminded Bolin of his dead pets as well as his dead parents. Or maybe . . . he'd thought that Bolin was having trouble with the idea of the Fire Nation Royal Family, but could be it was just the idea of _family_ not being synonymous with _Mako_. And with things between the brothers the way they were, each one having to get used to the other having a life that didn't center around himself . . . . Iroh reached for the teapot. Funny, he hadn't noticed the waiter refilling it, and if it was so heavy, why wasn't any tea coming out? He lifted the lid cautiously, slammed it down quickly, pushed the pot away. "That's just _wrong_."

"I know, why would anyone do that to—hey, what's this?" Bolin pulled the teapot towards himself, peered under the lid, and cut off his laugh with a pathetic attempt at a stern frown. "Get out of there, Pabu, you heard the man, you're going to get his ancestral teashop shut down for health violations." The fire ferret's long snaky body poured itself out of the top of the pot, and Iroh turned away with a wince; he couldn't look. Not that he had anything against Pabu, but abusing a _teapot_ like that . . . . "Don't give me that look, it doesn't work on me." Iroh turned back a bit guiltily, but Bolin was still talking to Pabu, now curled across his shoulders. Lying shamelessly to Pabu, judging by the silly smile on his face. Iroh imagined he'd find a matching one if he looked in a mirror. Someday Bolin was probably going to be like this with his kids.

One thing at a time, Iroh. Baby steps.

Iroh cleared his throat, and reached into his jacket pocket. "Er, if we're finished drinking tea," there, that was probably more dignified than _let's get out of here before Laofan finds out about this and makes me spend the afternoon washing dishes again_ , "there was something else in Ba Sing Se I wanted to show you." He handed a pair of tickets across the table to Bolin, who took them warily. He could read, but not well, and he tended to approach any text longer than a street sign the way other people approached unfamiliar animals that might bite.

But he scanned the small squares of card, moving his lips silently, and there it was, the grin, the eyes wide and bright as signal flares. "You're taking me to the _zoo?_ "

It was a chilly day, and overcast, with occasional spatters of rain; not Iroh's favorite weather, but ideal for his present purposes. The zoo was practically deserted. They bought a bag of roasted chestnuts and lingered under the statue of Avatar Aang when the rain started again.

"He looks friendlier than in the one at home," said Bolin. Here, he'd been sculptured lying against the flank of his flying bison, playing with a family of lemurs.

"This one's more like him," said Iroh.

"You knew him?"

"He died when I was still a kid, but yes." Iroh frowned. "There's no need to go all awed at me, you're the Avatar's best friend."

"That's different, Aang was a legend. Of course, Korra's pretty great, too." Bolin slipped the bag of chestnuts into his pocket, and his arms around Iroh's waist. " _And_ my boyfriend is the commander of the United Forces. I move in rarefied circles, me."

Iroh put his hand on the base of Bolin's neck and drew him closer. His mouth was warm and eager against Iroh's, and he made little hungry noises and moved his hands further down. This was what Iroh had missed, all those months at sea . . . and then Bolin's head came up, and he looked over Iroh's shoulder, and said, "Hey, it's stopped raining, I wonder if the elephantelopes have come out of their shelter?"

That was the trouble with taking a man who loved animals to the zoo; he wanted to see the animals.

The elephantelopes had come out of their shelter, and Bolin leaned his arms on the fence, watching them browse among the acacia trees, gushing about how cool they were. Iroh had recovered the chestnuts, and munched on them as he let Bolin's excited chatter wash over him. This wasn't kissing, but it was nice; nicer, maybe. Iroh had kissed plenty of people in his time—well, not _plenty_ , there'd always been more urgent things to do, but _several_ at least—but he didn't know anyone besides Bolin who would point out the way the elephantelopes used their tusks to scrape the outer bark off the trees to get at the softer, tastier bark beneath.

"And look, the little ones have stripes so they can hide in the grass, they grow out of them when they get bigger, seems like, but they look a bit like yours, don't they, Pabu?" Bolin frowned at his empty shoulder. "Buddy?" He patted his clothes, increasingly panicked. "Oh _no._ "

"What's wrong?" said Iroh. "Pabu wanders off all the time, and you never get like this."

Bolin shook his head impatiently. "Pabu _knows_ Republic City. He wanders off there, he's just . . . going for a walk. Now he's _lost_."

"Ah. Well. Let's think this through. He was definitely with us when we saw the cobra parrots." Had to be restrained from eating them, in fact.

"That's right," said Bolin. "It must have been—" A uniformed zoo employee was passing by and Bolin flagged him down. "Excuse me, sir, have you seen a fire ferret?"

"Sure!" The zookeeper smiled and pointed. "They're that way, past the platypus bears. Can't miss them."

"No, I mean—" Bolin started explaining to the zookeeper's back. Iroh put a hand on his arm.

"It's not a bad idea," he said, both because it wasn't, and because he wasn't sure how the staff at the zoo would react to the news of a loose fire ferret. "Maybe Pabu wanted to, er, visit his relatives."

He was rewarded with a wobbly, hopeful smile. "Could be." But when they got to the fire ferret exhibit, his shoulders slumped in disappointment. "He's not here."

That, after a second's glance at the exhibit, full of fire ferrets that all looked alike to Iroh. But somehow he didn't doubt Bolin.

"Don't tell stories, dear," a mother was saying to her little girl, dragging on her arm.

"But I did see a fire ferret squeeze through the fence, I did!"

Bolin was on his knees beside the girl before Iroh could blink. "Which way did he go?" he asked, all in a rush. The girl's eyes went very wide and she pointed wordlessly.

" _Thank_ you!" Bolin crowed. Then he dashed off, calling over his shoulder, "You should believe your daughter, ma'am!" Iroh hurried after him, catching up just in time to see him plant a foot on a bench and vault halfway into a tree.

"There you are! Don't scare me like that, buddy, I—huh." Bolin, descending the tree and bench more carefully with Pabu in the crook of one arm, had stopped in mid-lecture, his attention arrested by a piece of—graffiti? Two names enclosed in a heart, charcoal black against the blond wood of the bench.

"Ma Wei," Bolin read. "'Sfunny, that's my dad's name, and see, it's written with _ma_ like mountain, like Mako does , and . . . Kizi . . . ." Bolin traced the characters with a finger. "Mom must have burned it here, years ago."

Work like that took a delicate hand, and fine control, not to simply burn down the bench and all the trees nearby, Iroh knew. He had a sudden vision of a young woman with amber eyes like his own family had, her broad face scrunched up in concentration like Bolin's, trying to finish the heart before her boyfriend came back with the roasted chestnuts. It was only a fancy of his own—he had never even seen a picture of Bolin's mother, and suspected that none existed—but Iroh was seized with inspiration.

He took out the little notebook he always carried in his pocket, and a pencil, and tore out a page which luckily was big enough to enclose the heart. A few quick strokes of the pencil, and he'd transferred the heart and names to the paper, dark where the bench was light, white where it was black. He handed the rubbing to Bolin, who took it in both hands and sagged against the bench.

"Oh," he said, very quietly. And then, "Iroh." And that was all. His eyes were very bright, and when he blinked, they spilled over, and that wasn't what Iroh had intended at all. He sat down gingerly on the bench, not quite daring to touch Bolin, and was entirely surprised by an arm like an iron bar around his neck, and a mouth, tasting slightly of tears, kissing him fiercely. When Bolin let him breathe, Iroh noticed dizzily that he still held the rubbing in the other hand, as carefully as if it were made from fine porcelain.

"Can you do one for Mako, too?" Bolin asked. "I think it would mean a lot to him."

Iroh shrugged. He had been thinking of the rubbing as a private thing, between him and Bolin—but it had been just him and Bolin for nearly a year now, and that wasn't all he wanted. It wasn't the way Bolin was. "I can do one for Mako," said Iroh.

"Great!" Bolin grinned, though his voice was still wobbly, and his eyes glittered threateningly. He leaned back against the bench, and Pabu flowed over his arm and poked his head into Iroh's jacket pocket, where he'd stashed the chestnuts. "You know," Bolin went on, "the next time we come here, we should bring your brother's kids. I bet they love this place."


End file.
